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Employment Law Cases on the Rise

Florida wage and hour cases are increasing and expected to continue with the sweeping changes in healthcare reform. Here, at the Law Offices of Robert Rubenstein, our employment law caseload has gone up as laid-off workers are filing more discrimination and employment-related lawsuits against their former employers. Most of the cases handled at our firm stem from unpaid wages, unpaid overtime or employees being forced to work off the clock, which violates federal and state wage and hour laws. In just the last year, wage and hour lawsuits nearly quadrupled in total since 2000. According to a Miami Herald report, Florida’s courts are ranked among the highest in the country for number of filings of Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA) cases involving unpaid overtime. Florida ranks second in the country in workplace discrimination complaints filed. New data for 2011 shows Florida workers filed 8,088 complaints last year. That’s about 32 complaints filed every working day of 2011. Now, it appears the Affordable Healthcare Act could generate more employment law cases because, for the first time, health insurance is an employee benefit that is mandated. That has some employers scrambling to find ways around the mandate to avoid having to pay the newly required health insurance benefit. One example is companies trying to make employees “independent contractors.” However, in most cases, that won’t work because there may be a healthcare reform component that will allow employees to sue for not providing benefits they are supposed to be given through their employer. Our firm’s Miami office employment law attorneys, Kelly Amritt, and Matthew Allen, initiate suits on behalf of workers and most of their clients are service personnel, such as waiters, bartenders, line cooks and even managers. Many of the wage and hour lawsuits our legal team files are against employers failing to pay required wages, or for mis-classifying managers as exempt and failing to pay them overtime. As Kelly Amritt stated in the Miami Herald article, we prove our clients’ cases with “job description and witness testimony” along with other facts. The Law Offices of Robert Rubenstein has extensive experience handling all kinds of employment law cases. Our wage and hour Florida employment law attorneys can help you recover money that you are owed by your employer. You have rights and we want to help you be treated fairly by your employer. To speak to one of our attorneys for free, contact us at our Miami-Dade, Broward, or West Palm Beach offices at 1-800-FL-Legal (355-3425) or visit our website at rubensteinlaw.com.